Whether it’s a mosquito or your little brother pestering you about the laundry, you can use the word nuisance to describe something that causes small annoyances.
The noun nuisance traces back to the Latin word nocere, meaning “to harm.” Nuisance originally was used to refer to things that could produce serious injury and harm, but over time the word lost some of its capacity for destruction. Nowadays you’ll hear nuisance used to describe things or people that cause small problems or that bother you in annoying but trivial ways.
